Successful screening of 'ÌMÁLÀ' (The triumph of Wisdom) in Ireland

Successful screening of 'ÌMÁLÀ' (The triumph of Wisdom) in Ireland

by Yinka Dixon-Oludiaiye
Publisher: BECKY
CEO: Corporate Phases

The success story called 'ÌMÁLÀ' (The triumph of Wisdom) continues to be told. All roads led to the Plaza Hotel in Dublin, Ireland’s, Tyrellstown, on Friday 26th November, where the Movie premier was screened in Ireland for the first time. The movie screening which was presented by Matrix Entertainment Ltd and Ddymensions, saw several UK and Nigerian based Entertainment and Media personalities reunite with their Ireland based friends. After the screening, a question and answer session allowed for audience interaction and essential feedback for the benefit of the actors and directors. There was an initial photo call of Nollywood actors with business people and some fans.
ÌMÁLÀ has a simple but fantastic plot, creatively contrived, and deliberately woven into many real life complexities by the story’s author and Producer, Mr Abidemi Alaran, a writer, actor, film maker and Master of Ceremonies. Based on a true story, the plot takes the audience to different levels of emotional outbursts, with several interjections of laughter, side comments, arguments and even tears. Shrouded in several moments of mystery and suspense, the movie presents itself as educative, informational and entertaining. Set in a time, not too far away (2008), the story uses flashbacks as a very creative tool, bringing its audience to the beginning, the middle and the end of the story. The movie uses social, political and religious signposting, to bring into the consciousness of its audience, events in the country at the time of this incident.

Set in the village of IMALA in Ogun State of Nigeria, West Africa, and told in the Yoruba language (one of the three major languages of that country), the movie is sub-titled in English, though many intricate aspects of language is usually lost in translation. Conversations were drowned many times in poor audio output, and there was excessive use of ovation software. The sub-titling could also have benefitted from a bit of adequate language editing, and the pregnancy prop, made more believable. However, not once did the audience hear spiritual incantations, or aggravated commotion, excessive and noisy fighting or ubiquitous and pointlessly annoying swearing. The storyline is a complete departure from the usual fetish and noise-making that characterises the generality of African movies, giving the impression that many more good movies are about to explode out of Africa.

The title, 'ÌMÁLÀ', is a Nigerian phrase, derived from three words “Imo A La”, indicating the appearance of wisdom. This movie is a triumphant victim story of girl-meets-boy and becomes pregnant, of confusion, miscommunication, and hardship that eventually, ended in a happily-ever-after. It told the story of a young ambitious man (Bankole), living under the very watchful eagle eye of his uncle, a very devout church reverend to pursue his further education, met and fell in love with Segilola, an innocent secondary school girl. Segilola takes teen pregnancy, which is often a challenge that many homes face, as its main theme and explores the numerous challenges a girl faces, in the determination to correct her path in life as a teenage mother.

The movie centres on the story of Segilola a teenager who fell in love with Bankole, a 27-year old graduate. Segilola's naivety and lack of sex education put her in a life and career threatening situation. She was rejected and had to chart a new course for herself completely impervious of life's challenges. Sixteen years later, she is still trying to mend a situation that happened in complete innocence. The movie, which was directed by Andy Amenechi, sought to make the point that there are "no shortcut prescriptions" to matters of sex.

This "must watch" story is neatly and tastefully put together. From an educational point of view, the movie brings to light how young people receive little or no sexual education and are sometimes left with the resulting trauma and heartaches. While highlighting the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and unsafe abortion, ÌMÁLÀ significantly provokes much thought, discussion and debate, and depicts the gaping relationship crisis of our times, and how a girl’s life can easily go wrong. The well-meaning movie Director allowed the story to have a "happy-ever-after" ending, but many life stories do not actually end this way, leaving many career women as single mothers.

In conclusion, there are many lessons to be learnt which will enhance the education of young people (and adults) as far as sex, health and relationships are concerned. BECKY congratulates the directors, cast and crew of the movie for a job well done and recommends 'ÌMÁLÀ' (The Triumph of Wisdom), to everyone in every society and every culture.


Yinka Dixon - CMI Journalism Graduate Launches Magazine

Senator Mark Deary launches Becky Magazine, 29 October 2010

Anything is possible !! 
- CMI Journalism Graduate 
Launches Magazine 
- 29 October 2010

Bunmi Salako, Senator Mark Deary of Green Party, Yinka Dixon, Sina Salaam

Yinka Dixon, a recent graduate from the CMI Journalism course, prooves anything truly is possible when you set your mind to it.

A passionate and top student at CMI, Yinka has launched the first edition of her magazine 'Becky'.



The magazine creates a balance in appeal for people of all cultures and offers a very positive philosophy of how to live life to the fullest.

Yinka was propelled by great enthusiasm, and empowered by a CMI Journalism Diploma, to start BECKY magazine (a female focused publication).

Becky Magazine

FIRST, THEY CAME FOR THE COMMUNISTS...

"An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent." (~Edmund Burke)

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. THEN THEY CAME for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up." (~Pastor Martin Niemöller)

An ardent nationalist and prominent Protestant pastor, Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last 7 years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He is probably best remembered for the above quotation. The quotation is taken from his lectures during the early post-war period. There are different versions of the quotation, which are attributable to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. There is a lot of controversy about the content of the poem, because it has been printed in several varying forms, as referring to alternating groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists or Communists depending on the version. Nevertheless, his point was that Germans, (and particularly, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches) had been complicit because of their conspiracy of silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. Edmund Burke said: "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

When people in privileged authority, who should stand up for truth and justice, consistently become arrogant, vain and self-serving, with the deliberate aim of attaining aggravated positions of lordship over others, bordering on militant indiscretion, they lose their salt, their value or their worth. Their substance continues to diminish in the sights of those to whom they are called to serve. Vain-glory and pomposity become the order of the day. The sad fact, is that an increasing number of members of the revered White Collar profession, the “Men of God”, of “standing and repute”; the “timbers and juggernauts” of acclaimed spiritual “calling”, people with responsibility for the lives of millions of souls, people who should speak up or speak out, continue to troop (or troupe) into the “Corridors of Power” in a sad show of shame, seeking cheap popularity and false accreditation. "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." (~Plato)

Yet, some of them decry some of those who stand openly towards an indication for necessary change. Change does not come in an instant, but by contributions from all necessary credible angles. They say “those who stand for nothing will fall for anything” (my paraphrase). Yet, many say they stand for “something”, except that, beyond the opportunity of personal self-importance and financial gratification, one would need a giant magnifying glass to determine which side they really fall with. I guess many will fall on the side where their bread is buttered, perhaps understandable, when they do so quietly. Stephen King said "It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost."

Rather than stand up for truth and justice, many with voice and opportunity seek to color the truth for personal gratification, proclaiming a “form of justice”. Many people have turned themselves into accusers and judges, telling old wives tales, and stories that hug lies. I assume that the audience and electorate are also to blame in a way, because many seem to have itching ears, choosing rather to believe lies and fantastic fabrications, than facts. Perhaps it is true that facts can be boring. The good book of Christians directly instructs people to “buy the truth, and sell it not”. I once asked my dad, why he always bought four or five morning newspapers. He told me that to get the fact you need to read the account of more than one reporter, because not one person has “an angle” on the “truth”. There are always two sides to every story.

Between 1950 and 1954, Milton Mayer interviewed a German professor in "Kronenburg" (probably Mainz--its population was about 42,000 at the time), and then wrote a book titled, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1955, 1966), p. 168f, in which he quotes the professor as saying the following:

"Pastor Martin Niemöller spoke for thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something--but then it was too late."

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (~Edmund Burke)

A man in the Christian Holy Bible, named James once said “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law: but if you judge the law, you are no longer a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: Who are you, that you judge someone else? CLEAR OFF now, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there for one year, and buy and sell and make profit: Whereas YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SHALL BE on the morrow. For WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? It is even a vapor that appears for a wee while (a brief moment), and then vanishes (like a puff of smoke). BECAUSE OF THIS, YOU SHOULD SAY, “If it pleases the Lord, we shall live, and do this, or do that”. But instead of this, YOU REJOICE in your boasting: ALL SUCH rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin”. (James 4 verses 11-17 (my paraphrase).

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." (~Albert Einstein)

How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex?

So, How Much Sex Is Too Much Sex?

This question came up many years ago during a conversation about marital sex. 

 

A couple in relationship stress were with friends, when the man suddenly said “I like sex more than my wife”. All eyes stayed with him a few moments, and then, as if choreographed, all together turned to the wife. She meekly said “I can’t satisfy my husband, because he likes too much sex”. Again, as if rehearsed, all eyes looked to the floor for another few moments, before, one by one, gently, carefully, coming back up. No-one could look at either of them. No-one wanted to be accused of taking sides.

Who has been schooled enough in the area of handling marital relationships? Those with professional counselling skills know that this is the make or break point in most relationships, and needs to be handled with absolute caution. Many relationships are sick and on the verge of collapse because the protagonists in the marriage cannot speak about the real issues. Instead, counsellors are lumbered with hours of accusations that almost bother on witch-hunts, such as “he didn’t take out the bin three times in a row”; “she burnt my favourite food”. The list is endless. The real issue started hours ago, in the bedroom. Many people were brought up in a way that does not encourage talking about these issues. They get married because they claim to love each other, and proclaim their love for one another before many witnesses.

On the other hand, some people feel that they should live together first before determining if they are “right” for one another. Common Law arrangements have all the stress and problems of real marriages, without all the benefits. I always ask myself why anyone would want to go for a “Test Marriage”, especially the women. People have been conned, for too long, that marriage has no benefits, until you try it out first. So, what if you try it out, and you don’t like it? Does that erase the years you spent together as ordinary “partners”? That’s another word I like very much “partnerships” because of the business profitability angle. Do “test marriages work like “business partnerships”? A sort of “You bring, I bring: We share the profits”, kind of arrangement? If so, where is the “test” in that? After all the bible says there is “that, which every joint supplies” referring to the anatomy of the human being. Take the right arm for instance. Joined at the shoulder with the rest of the body, and at the elbow to the forearm, it is joined at the wrist to the hand, which normally has five fingers.

A business partnership assumes that each partner is good at “something”, and supplies “some degree of value” to the relationship, like our right arm. Now, imagine if the elbow says to the upper arm, “I really like you very much, but let’s just stay together for now and see if our relationship will work”. If it doesn’t work five years later, I will drop off, and you can go your own way.” Now, that would be something, wouldn’t it? Otherwise, imagine going into a brand new car showroom, and asking for a “test drive”. Five years later, three children and many photographs down the road, you abandon the car on the road, and tell the dealer, “sorry, here are your keys. We are just not compatible. That car has given me too much problems”; “he is always attracting too many women”; “she doesn’t like my mother”. Ah! Get with the program, please. Make up your mind. If a woman is good enough to have your children, she is good enough to marry.

OK, that was a diversion. How much sex is too much sex? Our couple were waiting for a response from all the wise men and women in the room. Suddenly, in about the same time it took you to read the above, the most elderly of the men in the room asked the question. “How much sex is too much sex”? Directed at no-one in particular, I guess the question hit everyone like a bombshell, because I saw every eye go back to the floor, and for a good while, no-one attempted to look up. Suddenly, the woman ventured a weak reply. “Well”, she said slowly, and brought all eyes back up. “I guess there is really nothing like “too much sex” if you are allowed to enjoy the process.” Again, all eyes went to the ground. There must be something on that carpet that attracts so much attention!

Many women are forgiving in other areas of a relationship, but when hurt during sexual encounters, they go for broke. They won’t say what is really biting them, because there is still that compelling need to protect the man’s ego. A wise man in a relationship needs to work more on the area of marital sex. 

This is not about using Viagra for dexterity. There is a certain gentility and finesse that conjures a loving attitude, which, if learned by both sexes, has the capacity to reduce the tensions in relationships. Sex education has been prominently omitted from the learning experiences of people, creating the majority of stress related and mental health symptoms we have in the world today. 

 

Every relationship is unique, because the people involved are unique. If you are sexually related to someone and are hoping for a lasting relationship, then you need to find out, how much sex is too much sex?

 

Yinka Dixon writes from Dublin, Ireland